The nation's chief executive suffered a heart attack an hour and a half before his death. Madame Chiang, the widow, Premier Chiang Ching-kuo, the elder son, and other family members were at the bedside.
President Chiang left a Last Will and Testament, signed just a week before, in which he urged the people to be faithful to Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People and to complete the National Revolution.
Yen Chia-kan, who was serving his second term as Vice President, was sworn in as President 11 hours after the passing of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. His inaugural statement asked the people to recover the mainland and complete the unfinished work of President Chiang.
The body of President Chiang lay in state at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei from April 9 until the National Memorial Service April 16. More than 2 million mourners filed past the open casket in a five-day period.
Messages of condolences came from leaders throughout the world. Many countries sent ranking dignitaries to pay their respects.
Following the Memorial Service, a cortege conveyed the body to Tzu Hu, a scenic place near the town of Tahsi in Taoyuan County west of Taipei. There the body will repose until removal to Nanking for a National Funeral and permanent entombment.
Further details of President Chiang's life and death will be found in a special article which follows The Month in Free China.
Premier Chiang Ching-kuo expressed his sorrow at the death of King Faisal of Saudi Arabia. He told a Cabinet meeting that the Republic of China was grateful for the monarch's support.
Flags flew at half-staff for three days. President Chiang Kai-shek and Vice President Yen Chia-kan also expressed condolences.
The Premier said:
"The news of the sudden and tragic demise of His Majesty, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, was received in Taipei with great shock and deep sorrow.
"Being a statesman with great wisdom and foresight and a religious leader with vision, moral courage and strong sense of righteousness, King Faisal did so much not only for his own country in bringing about both prestige and prosperity, but also for the free world in helping to maintain international peace and justice.
"The late King was a true friend of the Republic of China. As such, he visited the Republic of China in 1971. The royal visit resulted in perfect understanding and friendship between the King and President Chiang.
"In this connection, it is good to note that the visit made the King believe that the cause of the cause of the Republic of China is identical with that of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. And the government and people of the Republic of China are grateful to King Faisal for the unreserved and generous support the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been giving them throughout the years.
"For the demise of such a great leader and great friend, we fail in finding proper words to express the feeling of deep sorrow and a sense of irreparable loss in our hearts."
Premier Chiang urged the nation's business and industrial experts to help work out plans for maximum development of the economy.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the three-day National Economic Conference, he said the economic policy of the Republic of China is to make the nation stronger and its people prosperous. More than 100 participants attended the conference.
"We can hope to achieve political stability only when people of our country are prosperous," he said. "Through free economy and economic planning, people can become prosperous and the nation can become stronger."
The conference heard reports from officials concerned with agriculture, trade, industry, economic affairs and banking.
C.C. Chang, chairman of the Economic Planning Council, said the economy is expected to grow by 2.7 percent this year. Recovery can be expected in the second half of 1975, he said.
Chang said that the government will continue to invest in capital-intensive and technology-intensive industries to improve the industrial structure and enable the nation to achieve sustained economic growth.
Y.T. Wong, director-general of the Board of Foreign Trade, said the target of 1975 two-way trade is US$15 billion and that long-range programs as well as stop-gap measures have been worked out.
In long-range programs, Wong said, efforts will be concentrated on streamlining trade organizations, encouraging the export of sophisticated products, controlling supplies of essential raw materials from abroad, relaxing export and import restrictions, diversifying trade areas and encouraging the use of domestic products.
Stop-gap measures will include relaxation of the money supply, reduction of production costs, promotion of exports and support of export pools.
William Wei, director of the Industrial Development Bureau, said top priority in 1975 industrial development will be given to energy resources and basic industries.
The government will seek offshore oil and develop the steel, aluminum and shipbuilding industries.
Emphasis also will be placed on the machinery, electrical machinery apparatus, petrochemical and textile industries. The target for industrial growth rate has been revised upward to 5.2 percent from an earlier forecast of 2.5 percent. Last year's industrial growth rate was only 0.1 percent.
In agriculture, the government has mapped a comprehensive program and will create specialized crop regions, said Robert Lee, chairman of the Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction.
The overall program seeks to improve irrigation, fisheries, animal husbandry, forestry and slope land farming.
Farmers have received benefits amounting to US$66.6 million in the last two years under the rural reconstruction program begun by Premier Chiang Ching-kuo.
K.H. Yu, governor of the Central Bank of China, said the government's monetary policy seeks to increase flexible capital sources to stabilize the economy and promote development.
Plans call for adjustment of interest rates, loans to export industries, support to the ten basic construction projects and to rural development projects, a savings campaign and establishment of a money market.
Finance Minister K.T. Li said the government hopes to increase direct taxes to 35 percent of the total by the early 1980s.
Customs duties on essential machinery, raw materials, daily necessities and farm products will be gradually lowered or eliminated.
Premier Chiang said relations between the Republic of China and the United States "have been very cordial, close and of mutual interest" and they will be further strengthened." He was answering the question of a legislator.
"The relations between the Republic of China and the United States have been built on a solid foundation; they are very close and cordial," he said.
"The United States has repeatedly made it clear that it will always honor its treaty commitments with the Republic of China."
The Republic of China will promote "substantial contacts" with countries with which it has no formal ties, the Premier added.
Barry Goldwater's statement that the United States should maintain diplomatic recognition of the Republic of China was warmly received in Taiwan.
The U.S. senator said the political system of freedom on Taiwan is vastly superior as an answer to human problems than the system of centralized government and slavery operating under the Communist theories of Mao Tse-tung.
The Republican from Arizona told his Senate colleagues that cancellation of U.S. defense and diplomatic obligations to a loyal ally like the Republic of China "would cast grave doubt upon the credibility of U.S. commitments to the Free Alliance anywhere else in the world where we have a vital interest."
He said that a "precipitous withdrawal of our diplomatic recognition of the Republic of China, whether coupled or not with an ending of our defense treaty with her, could alone encourage the Communist and military rulers of the mainland to believe that they could use armed force with impunity against the Chinese on Taiwan.
"In other words, the callous severing of official relations between the United States and the Republic of China could cause the Chinese communists to take risks which they will not take now and which could lead to a chain event of conflagrations touching off a World War III."
Sen. Goldwater emphasized that "it is in the interest both of the United States' national security and of the long-range quest of the peoples of the world for peace that the United States should maintain its official diplomatic recognition of the Republic of China as the legal government of China.
"I also believe that this policy should be ac companied by a continued adherence on our part to the terms of the mutual defense treaty between the United States and the Republic of China."
The 1964 Republican presidential candidate was critical of the many U.S. Congressional delegations to the Chinese mainland which returned with laudatory words.
He noted that Congressional reports praised the eradication of the common house fly and the elimination of floods, pestilence, famine and other ills. "Conspicuously absent from this rundown of remarkable advances, however, is any mention of freedom," he said.
"In all these reports by persons returning from the mainland of China, I cannot find one sentence announcing the existence of basic human rights and civil liberties among these Chinese people.
"Where, I wonder, do the writers of these glowing plaudits for the Communist political system place the importance of freedom in their scheme of things?
"I would ask what good does it do to have all the answers on unemployment, inflation, social problems, food, clothing and medicine, if the people are not free?" he asked. "To me," he said, "it does not mean a thing."
Sen. Goldwater cited a report by his legal assistant, J. Terry Emerson, who visited Taiwan, that the government of the Republic of China is making great economic advances and that this progress has been accompanied by a wide range of freedoms.
He said that while the fundamental human rights granted and secured by the government of the Republic of China on Taiwan are immediately visible to any visitor to that country, they are nowhere "on the list of qualities found by the various delegations which have toured the Communist mainland."
Hsueh Yu-chi, newly appointed ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said the Republic of China and Saudi Arabia would continue to strengthen their relations.
He said the countries jointly plan to establish a fertilizer plant, a sugar mill and an oil refinery in the Middle Eastern kingdom.
The Republic of China, which is providing technical assistance in many construction projects in Saudi Arabia, also welcomes Saudi investment in Taiwan, he said.
Before appointment to replace Ambassador Tien Pao-tai, Hsueh was one of the three vice ministers of foreign affairs.
The solution of Middle East problems can be achieved by negotiation, he said, on condition that the Communists are not involved.
He pointed out that Chinese and Moslem cultures are important in world history. Further exchanges are necessary.
He said that he would work on joint projects and ask private and government sectors of the Republic of China to help.
President Chiang Kai-shek named T.S. Tung ambassador to the Dominican Republic and Tseng Hsien-kuei as ambassador to the Republic of Panama.
Tung, formerly chief of the Chinese mission in the Khmer Republic, succeeded Seng Pang-hua. Tseng replaced J. L. Huang, who is retiring.
In the event of a large-scale military clash between the Peiping regime and the Soviet Union, the Republic of China will retake the mainland, said a ranking official of the Kuomintang.
Chen Yu-ching, director of the Overseas Affairs Department of the KMT Central Committee, said free China's armed forces would simultaneously fight against Russians invading the mainland. He was addressing the China Society of Journalism.
"We have enough assets to ensure our survival and a bright future," he said. He cited modern armed forces, a viable economy, strong leadership and the overwhelming support of overseas Chinese.
"We shall survive no matter how the world situation may change," he said. "Our forces will re-enter the mainland as soon as chaos occurs there. Then our goal of national recovery will be realized. "
Commenting on President Ford's projected trip to Peiping, he said it will not result in U.S. recognition.
"The United States will not make drastic moves for the sake of its own interest, the power balance in the Asian-Pacific area, its treaty obligations and moral considerations," he said.
Negotiation has become the "in" thing in international politics since Richard Nixon coined the slogan "negotiation instead of confrontation," Chen said. But negotiation has neither solved international problems nor achieved a balance of power.
"What has been achieved through negotiations is superficial and limited. There are now more conflicts than before," he said, "and international tension has not been abated by one iota."
Chen cited the escalation of Communist attacks in Indochina and rising tensions in the Middle East as proof that negotiation has failed to achieve its objectives. "Shooting wars of various magnitudes are going on today in at least IS areas," he said. "The Russians and the Chinese Communists have demonstrated greater aggressiveness and expansion throughout the world."
Chen viewed American efforts to achieve detente with Peiping as a tactical move designed to curb further Russian expansion.
The Federation of Overseas Chinese Associations urged U.S. President Gerald Ford to exercise caution in accepting an invitation to visit Peiping this fall and not to fall into a Chinese Communist trap.
In a letter addressed to President Ford, the organization said the United States has not derived any advantages from its change of policy toward the Chinese Communists. On the contrary, it said, the U.S. image has been damaged.
Similar letter were addressed to members of the U.S. House of Representative and Senate.
Capital outlay for the ten economic development projects will be NT$250,000 million (US$6,597 million).
Upon completion of the projects in 1979, the Republic of China will become one of the world's developed countries.
The gross national product and per capita income will be double the figures of today.
The gross national product was NT$536,600 million (US$14,121 million) and per capita income was about US$700 last year.
The projects are the North-South Freeway, Taoyuan International Airport, Taichung harbor, Suao harbor, railway electrification, Suao-Hualien railway, integrated steel mill, Kaohsiung shipyard, petrochemical industry and nuclear power plants.
The Kaohsiung integrated steel mill will eventually produce 6 million metric tons of steel annually, about four times the present combined production capacity of steel mills and iron works.
The Kaohsiung shipyard will have annual capacity of 1,500,000 gross tons of shipping, approximately five times the present capacity.
Petrochemical plants will produce 1,400,000 metric tons of raw materials. If average value is US$500 a ton, they will be worth US$700 million. Allowing for 1,400,000 metric tons of imported crude oil, there will be an annual profit of US$500 million.
Installed power capacity will reach 16,500,000 kilowatts in 10 years, four times the present figure. Nuclear power will account for 58 percent, thermal power for 33 percent and hydro power for 9 percent.
Taichung harbor will be open to traffic by October, 1976, said Chen Ming-cheng, director of the Taichung Harbor Bureau.
The design has been changed to include a ship repair yard accommodating vessels of up to 50,000 tons. Container piers will be widened.
Two more sections of the North-South Freeway will be opened to traffic in October: one between Sanchung and Taipei and another between Chungli and Yangmei.
The 31-kilometer section between Sanchung and Chungli was opened to traffic last October. The three sections linking Taipei with Yangmei cover a distance of 43.5 kilometers.
Construction of the southern section of the 373.4-kilometer freeway has been proceeding smoothly because of good weather.
China Airlines has leased a Boeing 747 jumbo jet from Boeing Aircraft Inc. of the United States to beef up its transpacific service.
CAL originally had planned to buy two DC-10 jets for its Pacific service. Plans were changed because of the high cost and the bigger capacity of the jumbo. A DC-10 carries 270 passengers compared with 350 for a 747.
CAL has six Boeing 707s flying the Pacific and Taipei-Singapore routes. Business is good on flights to Honolulu, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
CAL plans a special "visit the Republic of China" fare for travelers from the United States.
The proposed roundtrip fare is US$750 compared with the regular fare of US$1,162. Travelers would have to stay 15 days and no longer than 90 days.
Opening of a new 12-story building in August will make the Veterans General Hospital in suburban Taipei the biggest in free China.
The new building will have 400 rooms and wards and other facilities.
Hospital capacity will be raised to 1,400 rooms and wards and 10 operating rooms.
The hospital will embark upon a second five year expansion program in June. The goal is better facilities for mental patients and the treatment of chronic diseases.
Although VGH's principal assignment is medical care for retired servicemen and their families, it also serves as a public hospital and a teaching center.
It ranks with the Taiwan University Hospital and Tri-Service General Hospital among the three biggest and best hospitals in the Republic of China.
Taipei soon will acquire another big hospital. Located on Tunhua North Road across from the Mandarin Hotel, it is being built with funds provided by Wang Yung-ching, Taiwan's "plastics king" and wealthiest citizen.
Taiwan University Hospital doctors reported that there is no definite link between the eating of lard and hardening of the arteries.
Prof. Huang Po-chao, a biochemist at NTU's College of Medicine, and Dr. Tseng Wen-pin, a cardiologist at Taiwan University Hospital, under took a clinical survey of villagers at Sanchih in Taipei County.
Over 90 percent of Sanchih villagers are farmers. They raise hogs as a sideline. When the hogs are butchered, they keep lard for home cooking.
Lard has been blamed for the high cholesterol that leads to coronary thrombosis and other heart diseases. Many people have switched to other edible oils.
Drs. Huang and Tseng found only 0.5 percent of Sanchih villagers over 40 had coronary diseases, compared with 2.7 percent in Taipei.
A proposal to make Chiang Ching a "vice premier" of the Peiping regime was vetoed by veteran party regulars, Premier Chiang Ching-kuo said.
This preceded the 10th "national congress" of the Chinese Communist Party in August 1973, Premier Chiang told the Legislative Yuan.
The intelligence report on which Premier Chiang was drawing also disclosed the following:
- Party veterans threatened to boycott the 10th "national congress" and Chou En-lai forced Mao Tse-tung to leave Peiping and reside at Wuhan last fall by his prolonged stay in the hospital under the pretense of illness.
- "Marshal" Liu Po-cheng pounded the table with his hand to voice his objection to Chiang Ching's proposal to make Chang Chun-chiao defense minister, and Mao's wife opposed in her turn the appointment of Yang Cheng-wu as chief of staff of the Red army.
- Veteran leaders of the Red army insisted that the posts of defense minister and chief of staff must be filled by men of military background.
The Premier revealed the incidents to back his judgment that the Maoist regime is doomed.
"Mao Tse-tung is not going to have any successor," the Premier said. "Nor will there be a second generation of Maoists. The regime is marching inexorably toward its grave."
"Torn by incessant internal bickering, the regime is shaky," Premier Chiang remarked. He cited the following problems plaguing the Maoists:
- The regime cannot solve its economic problems because of the inherent weakness of the Communist system and its frantic nuclear armament program.
- Struggle between the party and Red army cannot be resolved; the army itself is divided.
- Incessant struggles rule out stability. The purge of Lin Piao will be followed by others.
In the opinion of Lord Michael Lindsay, professor emeritus of Far Eastern studies at the American University in Washington, D.C., the United States would gain nothing from establishing diplomatic relations with Red China.
Writing in Asian Affairs, a bimonthly published by the American-Asian Education Exchange, the expert on Chinese Communist affairs expounded on the political situation on the Chinese mainland and Peiping's bid for detente with Washington.
Once a Chinese Communist sympathizer who revisited the mainland in 1949, 1954 and 1973, Lord Lindsay pointed out that the Communist China regime would gain some obvious advantages if the U.S. "liaison office" in Peiping became an "embassy."
But the United States would gain nothing, he said, because Peiping has never been willing to accept the conventions of normal diplomatic relations and allow missions in Peiping to follow them.
Lord Lindsay said "the Peiping regime is not likely to allow the development of detente in the American sense of the word because it would be more likely to produce a revolution in (Red) China than in the United States,"
He continued: "Widespread contacts between the (mainland) Chinese people and well-informed foreigners would make the (mainland) Chinese people much more skeptical about official publicity and might introduce highly subversive 'dangerous thoughts.' "
Lord Lindsay predicted Peiping will oppose widespread and free contacts between the people of the China mainland and the United States because such openness would be a threat to its system.
The British scholar criticized American visitors to Red China who "have been prepared to compromise their professional standards rather than jeopardize their chances of getting a visa for another visit."
He said: "I feel only contempt for the scholars from free countries who are willing to compromise their integrity for a visa."
Visitors who have published laudatory accounts of Red China have been adversely critical in private conversations, he said, and recalled:
"In 1973, my wife (Li Hsiao-li) and I briefly encountered an American academic party in Peiping, and later met one of its members in Hong Kong. He said that most of them had been disgusted by their treatment in (Red) China, but that the leader of the party had urged all its members not to say anything that might offend the (Red) Chinese authorities."
Lord Lindsay added that when Chinese-Americans visited their relatives in Red China, "the latter have often asked them not to say anything critical (of the Peiping regime) in America because it might get them into trouble."
Prof. Wei Chu-hsien, an archeologist, arrived from Hong Kong to settle down in Taiwan.
Professor Wei, 73, of Shansi, refused an invitation from a Chinese Communist agent in Hong Kong to go back to the mainland. He met his married daughter for the first time in 30 years as he arrived in Taipei.
Wei studied Chinese literature at Tsinghua Institute of Chinese Literature in Peiping. He taught at a number of colleges and universities.
When the Communists overran the mainland, he was in Chungking. He knew Chou En-lai and Kuo Mo-jo, a leading literary figure of the Chinese Communists, and thought he wouldn't be treated roughly. He was wrong.
When the Chinese Communists reached Chung-king, he was made to kneel on the floor for an hour and a half. He decided to leave and reached Hong Kong in 1951.
Communist agents called on him recently and suggested great archeological finds had been made on the mainland and that he could be of service. It was time to leave for Taiwan.
Prof. Wei has published about 30 books. He is researching the theory that a Chinese discovered America before Columbus.
Development of slope land and technological innovation are necessary if Taiwan is to be self-sufficient in food supply 10 years hence.
Chen Hsi-huang, head of the rural economics division of the Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction, estimated the population will be 18,437,000 by 1985.
Arable land available for crops will be 1,480,000 hectares with a requirement of about 3,000, 000 hectares.
"The only way to solve the problem is to make use of slope land and introduce technological innovations," Chen said.
He made these calculations:
- Annual per capita food consumption is 133.2 kilograms of unpolished rice, 27 kilograms of flour, 15.3 kilograms of sweet potatoes, 12 kilograms of beans, 80.7 kilograms of vegetables, 56.3 kilograms of fruits, 15.7 kilograms of pork, 0.7 kilograms of beef or mutton, 18 kilograms of domestic fowl, 29.3 kilograms of milk, 38.3 kilograms of cooking oil and 12.8 kilograms of sugar.
- With a population of 18,437,000, the 1985 total requirement will be 2,355,854 metric tons of unpolished rice, 501,469 metric tons of flour, 282,091 metric tons of sweet potatoes, 11,487,893 metric tons of vegetables, 1,038,022 metric tons of fruits, 298,466 metric tons of pork, 331,872 metric tons of domestic fowl and 704,307 metric tons of fishery products.
Slope land can be developed to grow feed to support animal husbandry, he said.
The government completed a survey of idle farmland. It found 62,598 unused farm plots with an area of 9,281 hectares.
Owners of such land must grow crops before the end of August or pay trebled taxes.
The government will buy idle plots that remain uncultivated in August of 1976.
Owners putting their land back in agricultural use will receive government assistance.
Maximum use of land is part of government efforts to boost food production. The goal for rice output this year is 2,700,000 metric tons, an increase of 200,000 metric tons over 1974.
Reserve stocks of rice have increased by 100 percent in the last year, Premier Chiang Ching-kuo disclosed.
Answering questions at the Legislative Yuan, he attributed the gain to efforts of farmers and the government policy of encouraging production.
"The food problem must be settled before the government can tackle other thorny economic problems," he said.
He told lawmakers the government is increasing unit production, lowering the cost of production, reducing the farmers' burden and mitigating the damage of natural calamities.
The Premier expressed hope government officials will show "deep understanding of the farmers' needs and their problems."
He said the government is supplying fertilizer at low prices, reducing the tax burden on farmers, building rural roads and improving irrigation.
Premier Chiang praised farmers for accepting new agricultural ideas. He noted that the 4-H Club is disseminating new farm know-how.